Beloved
by Pencilwalla
Summary: AU. Oneshot. BK. "You confuse love and lust." "Lust is a one night stand. Three years suggests something else."
1. Fifteen

_Beloved_

They sit there, in that cold, stone room. Behind them the portal gently pulses, lighting the room eerily.

They are opposites. He lounges, leaning back on his arms, face almost impassive. The faintest hint of intermingles sorrow and arrogance mix in his eyes, and his dark, blood-colored hair is pulled neatly back from his face. She, in contrast, is tense, on her knees, hands clasped over her breast. Her eyes are wide with fear, and she trembles ever so often. Messy, black hair falls around her shoulders and reaches her waist, snarled and tangled from too long without access to a comb.

He watches her, in her corset and little else. How she bites at her lip without realizing it. How her knuckles are white from dread. How her arm is bruised, from his iron grasp.

She watches the hourglass, three quarters empty. Fifteen minutes are left, and she glances again at the portal behind her in longing. She touches the cold gem beneath her fingers, and a silent tear rolls down her cheek. It falls to the ground, a perfect shining thing ruined in the dust.

He can bear this silence no longer.

"Give it to me."

"No." She stares at him, finally, and he looks directly into her eyes. Everything about her is weak at first glance, but he knows better. Those eyes have steel if he looks for it.

"Why?" He has to know. For three long years she has fought with him, run from him, been caught by him, they have danced around each other and fate for so long and he still does not know what propels her. "Why do you guard it with your life?"

She hesitates, and then answers. Why not? She has nothing left to lose by telling him.

"My beloved's soul is trapped in here. He is not your kind; he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. The king holds his body at the palace as ransom. How can I turn my head and let him die? How can I?"

"Because of that-" He reaches out and grabs her hand, careful not to bruise he further. He pulls her forward so that she is almost in his lap. "Because of that my beloved is dead. My parents, my siblings, everyone who has ever cared for me is dead. Because your king and his people used it to enslave us. And for his life, you would keep it that way?"

"I love him." She insists, trying not to think of anything but Ryo's face. But she fails.

"Enough that as soon as he was gone, you committed adultery?"

"Don't you dare." She whispers. "It didn't mean anything. Our-" She blushes, looking back at the hourglass-twelve minutes-and meet his eyes again. He is laughing, silently, with those eyes, and she hates him for it.

At least, she wants to hate him for it.

"Our affair didn't mean anything?"

"You confuse love and lust."

"Lust is a one night stand. Three years suggests something else."

She sighs, feeling hopelessly defeated. Guilt seeps in, leaving her even colder than before. Ryo and she were happy. It had started out as a way to stop the revolt. A way to keep Ryo alive, to bring him back. But every lie she'd tried to believe in had cracked, and now she was a pawn. Blackmailed by one side, and held prisoner by the other.

Only love is left, and he is taking that, too, with ease. She doesn't know what love is anymore; sometimes she can't remember Ryo's face. Everything is broken, but to say it, to admit it is beyond her.

"I love him. I can't murder him."

"But you can murder us? You know that if that thing gets back into the hands of your king, he will kill us all. An entire race, obliterated because you wanted one man to live."

"I know that! I know. But I can't! You make it so simple, but it isn't!"

"It is simple. Give it to me, and you live. Keep it, and when the hour runs out we will fight, and you will die."

"You don't know that."

"I know. I've seen you fight, and you've seen me fight. You know you'll die."

There is nothing to say to that. It is true- he is faster, stronger, better in the end. She won't last. She will lose to him. But then again, hasn't she already lost? Her world is gone. He has left her an empty shell, unwilling to try and live.

The portal pulses and she stares longingly at it. He laughs out loud this time.

"You can't run. I'll stop you. Give it to me."

"Why?" She wants her own answers, wants to stop being helpless at his hands. "Why are you so determined that I give it to you? You have already said you will kill me!"

"I don't want to kill you." He snaps, and then stops. She has caught him off guard, but she is the only one he expects will ever surprise him now. He is different, and there is no going back from that.

"Why not?"

"...you know why."

The silence oppresses them again, crushing all the questions they want to ask, all the confessions they want to make.

He wants to say it to her, just once, three little words, but she holds that treacherous thing in her hands and he will not tell her and then kill her. Never. Not again. He will not watch someone he loves die in his arms, and if he never speaks those words it's not real and he doesn't care for her at all...

She wants to ask him, four little words, but he watches the thing in her hand hatefully and she cannot bear it, not again, her heart is barely held together by Ryo and if he says that yes, Ryo is not the only one for her, then she will be broken entirely and if she never hears it, it's not real and she and Ryo are true soul mates...

As if planned, they look in unison towards the hourglass, its pink crystals falling unbearably slow, unbearably fast. Five minutes. Five crystals, shimmering with deceptive innocence.

"Soon." She murmurs. "Soon, I join my love, but he in heaven and I in hell."

"I thought you believed in saving lives, not taking them. But you will sacrifice two lives instead of one?" Desperation courses through him and he hides it; if she chooses life over that thing it will be proof enough. He can have her, then, without regret.

"My life is over. I do not want to live, not if Ryo is..."

"You have no family, no friends, no reason to live a day longer?"

"No."

"Live for the sake of living, then. Don't waste your life over it! If you have no other reason...live for me, at least."

She shakes her head, trying to make him understand her despair. "Please understand that I can't. No mater how much I want to, I can't."

And neither of them has said anything, but they don't have to anymore.

_Do you love me?_

_I love you. Do you love me?_

_I love you._

There is perfect clarity, between them, like a fog has lifted.

He can suddenly see, in his mind's eye, the chains of guilt binding her to it, to death, to his katana.

It is not love, as he feared, but guilt that drives her to die.

One crystal is left, and he stands quickly, pulling her upwards. She grabs her weapon and he takes it, breaking it cleanly into pieces and letting them fall to the ground at her feet. He sets his katana on the floor gently, and then looks at her.

And smiles, without a hint of cruelty or bloodlust, just a smile, and she freezes.

He kisses her, and she nearly faints into his arms. Somehow she maintains consciousness, but coherent thought is beyond her reach.

He reaches, unnoticed, up to her neck and plucks the thing, the cold red gem, from her throat. Out of the corner of his eye, the last pink crystal begins to fall.

He pushes her violently through the portal and it vanishes, leaving him alone.

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Outside the towering palace walls, she falls, lightly, onto the grass, wet from the light rain that falls around her.

She stares blankly at the grey stone, through eyes that are crying harder then the rain. For a moment she cannot understand why she cries. She is safe; he will not kill her.

And then the loss of it, of Ryo, who she loved but no longer, registers and she sobs into her hands.

Around her, the rain falls.

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His superior enters after a few minutes. He looks up at him, for a moment utterly uncomprehending. Then his gaze hits the gem, and he holds it out.

"We are free." Three words, and for so long they have been is goal. But it is meaningless without her to share it with him.

His superior nods. "I thank you for your services." He looks around the room, pristine. There are no signs of a struggle. No sign that she was ever here. Only a teardrop on the floor remains. "Where..."

The question is never finished; the man understands, from the look on his face, that he will never tell him what went on in here. And it is irrelevant, for the gem is theirs. Their race is free after a long war.

But he is still enslaved, caught in the bindings of the heart.

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He is numb, and she is numb, and no amount of drink can make them feel.

So they don't even try, and just sit there, staring at the table between them. Its hard wooden surface reveals no mysteries, however, and n the end he is forced, once again, to break the silence or go mad. But she beats him to it, for once.

"Why am I here?"

For once he is the one who is nervous, hesitating. "A former revolutionary caught you and brought you here. As a blood moon gift for me."

"Blood moon?"

"A festival."

"Why would he give a woman as a gift?"

The steel is back in her eyes, and she looks straight at him. Immediately she wishes she had not. He invokes feeling in her, and it hurts. His raw, untamed devotion hurts her, and she needs it as much as she fears it.

"Blood moon is traditionally the time when my kind takes mates."

"Is that what you plan to do with me, then?"

"Perhaps, if you are so inclined." His eyes flash, and she knows his next words will cut. She is not disappointed. "Did you find Ryo's body?"

"Yes." She tries to stop the tears, but to no avail. They would not come at his funeral, but not, alone with him, they flow freely. "I buried him myself."

"Good."

"Good? My beloved is dead, and you call that good?"

"It leaves you free for the taking. Free for me."

His heart is full again; the hole where her death had struck him filled once more. The damage is being repaired, slowly. In time, he knows, he will have her. There is nothing left for her but him.

"What makes you think that I need to be taken?"

"You're broken."

"You'll fix me." Her words are unexpected, unintended, and she doesn't know why she says them to him. But the truth is evident.

Who can know better the pieces of her heart, then the one who tore them, one by one?

"I will. Don't worry." The table between them is suddenly gone, and she feels exposed, left unprotected.

Can she trust him not to break her again?

"What if you break me again?"

"I won't." he holds out his hand to her, a silent invitation.

_I still love you. Come with me._

She takes his hand.

_I still love you. Lead the way._

They walk, like shadows, into the bedroom. The door slides shut and the candles go out.

The blood moon glows lightly above them, coloring the night.

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**Written in two hours at three in the morning. Sorry if it sucks.**

**I have another one shot in the works, a high school fic, plus I have to write Part IV of Contraposition, which is being evil. Forget everything else for now. Once Contraposition is done, I plan on doing Revelations and then Odyssey. **

**The idea behind this was originally a story similar to This Is Forever. This scene would be Kaoru the goddess and Kenshin the devil. When this hourglass ran out, Kaoru would have to fight Kenshin and then go on to fight the rest of the castle full of devils to save her parents. Of course, she'd never get past Kenshin, so he would throw her out and then go on to fight in the battle (priestesses and minor deities versus devils) himself. But it didn't quite work out and so I got this. **

**Review, please- I need to know if this makes any valid sense.**

**This has been chickentyrant5.**


	2. Six

Life is a cycle, a circle, and what you do unto others will be done unto you.

Her mother's wisdom comes unbidden as she stares at the man in front of her. Her hand tightens on her husband's - her mate's- arm. The wide- eyed look she gives him makes him smile, and she knows that that is why he's here. To see how she reacts.

"Ryo? I thought...my God." She feels faint, and suddenly she is sitting in a chair that wasn't there before. Clutching and twisting at her gown, she refuses to meet those horribly familiar eyes.

"Kaoru. How I've missed you, my love!" She looks up at that statement. Relief and surprise mix in her stomach. Ryo had always been rather dense.

"Ryo...I...I'd like you to meet someone..." She doesn't know how to tell him. How to explain that it has been five years and she hasn't been pining for him. That her heart, fickle, has moved on.

"Of course. But do it quickly- I want to arrange for our return."

"Re-return?" For a moment it passes in one ear and out the other, then truth strikes like lightning in her heart. A hand tightens on her shoulder, and she leans into him.

"To our village, Kaoru. For our wedding."

He looks so innocent, so happy, and when she thinks of all she has done in his absence, she feels much older. Ryo is still a naïve, slightly stupid young man, and she has changed too much. Hasn't she?

"Ryo...this is Kenshin. He and I...are already married."

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"And then, I..." Ryo trails off, staring at her with surprise. She cocks her head, confused, and sits up a little straighter.

"What is it, Ryo?" She asks, concerned.

His face breaks into a wide, sincere smile, and her heart flutters. "You look so happy all of a sudden."

"Just...being with you, like this..." She smiles at him, a worldlier smile, but a real smile all the same. "It reminds me of all he reasons I fell in love with you in the fist place."

He takes her hand, and they sneak, giggling, onto the balcony like children. She is a giddy, lovesick maiden again, thirteen and meeting friends out in the fields late at night.

Drunk on happiness, they kiss beneath the white moon.

The last remnants of the storm clouds melt away.

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Is it punishment, he wonders, for causing so much ruin? For shattering the life of one sad, despairing woman so he could piece her back together again?

Outside the darkened glass doors, Kaoru is kissing Ryo, and all the wine in the world cannot stop him from hurting.

The shadows in front of the moon part and the light shines clearly once again.

In his heart, however, there is only darkness.

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"Are you leaving me?"

She looks up from her poor attempt at sewing in shock. He can read her emotions as though they are scrawled across her skin; she is easy, for him. Loving her is too easy. But once he is with her, he cannot let go.

"You saw us?" Her face tenses for the painful words she knows he will say; his tongue is as sharp as his katana, and he wields it as freely.

"I saw you kiss him and walk away. Was there something else I ought to have seen, beloved?" He asks bitingly.

She can't tell whether or not the endearment is sincere or mocking, a planned attack or an ambush. The word from his mouth is both familiar and strange, and something in her twists at his tone.

"No." She says quietly. She looks down at her hands, at crumpled handkerchief, and looks back at him. "There wasn't."

"I'm surprised at that. You two never had the chance to be together, after all." She buries her face in her knees, the barbs he throws sticking to her like an arrow in soft flesh. Rage rises, unfairly, under her skin and she reddens.

"At the time, I was planning to wait til I was married." She hisses, voice muffled by her skirts and clenched teeth.

"So then, what happened with me?" He drawls. Now she knows he is purposefully lashing out, punishing for her for hurting him, for kissing Ryo.

"I-I changed." Se mumbles. The answer seems inadequate to explain their three year affair, or three year marriage, but war redrew all her boundaries. He redrew all the lines.

"I changed you." He stares out into the bright, sunny day. The sky is clear, blue. To him it is only empty.

She throws her embroidery, giving up, onto the ground. He hurries before she can flee, away into hiding. Away to Ryo. Again, and this time she will answer him.

"Are you leaving me?"

"I don't know." An empty sky for her empty words, her empty honesty. His heart feels hollow. "Do you want me to?"

He is at her side in an instant, trapping her in the oversized chair she loves so much. She hugs her legs, looking wide-eyed and innocent as she stares mutely at him.

"My kind mates for life, Kaoru." He whispers harshly, leaning over her so she is sure to absorb what he is saying. "You cannot possible think I would ever want to be parted from you."

He leaves abruptly, and crumpled, she cries.

Silent in the dark, so does he.

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"Fallen out of love with me?"

They always eat alone on Sunday nights. But tonight there is a third figure. Ryo lingers in both their minds like the smell of incense. She thinks of him, of them, her two bittersweet loves, and ignores him. All her favorite foods, and she finds the meal tasteless, pointless.

"It's much harder to fall out of love than it is to fall into it." He replies. Her silence is answer enough; he maintains a tenuous hold upon her heart still.

She will kill him if she leaves him. He knows that.

But there is no force on earth that could make him hold her fast, should she want to run.

She pushes a full plate, after picking at it for so long.

"Bed." She mutters, fleeing through the glass doors.

It is nearly dawn when she awakes, cold, and realizes for the first time in three years, she is sleeping alone.

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When she comes in, he doesn't acknowledge her. If he ignores her, he won't have to hear rejection pass from her lips. He can pretend his heart is still whole instead of ruined.

But the sound of her weeping will not let him be.

Sprawled across the bed, clutching at his pillow, she is shaking with suppressed sorrow.

He goes to her, sitting distantly at her side. It occurs to him suddenly that this may be the final time he can do this, sit beside her and stroke her hair, and he forces himself to remain detached.

Unable to stop himself, he touches her hair softly. She peeks at him from beneath lowered lashes, wet with tears, and the pillow is pushed aside.

"You're leaving me." He tells her flatly. He can see it in her eyes.

"No." She protests, shaking her head and sitting up on her knees. She hugs the pillow again. "I want to stay here. With you."

"Why?"

"A you said before, it's not easy to fall out of love with someone...and I still love you."

"More than you love Ryo." He murmurs, reaching out for her with steadier hands than hers.

"Why do you ever ask me questions if you know all the answers?" She sniffs. Collapsed against him, she cannot think of anything but him. She is obsessed, concentrated, bound to Kenshin in a way she is with no one else.

Even if he were to vanish tomorrow, she thinks, she would remember each and every second with him for the rest of her life. He is etched, irreversibly, onto her heart, mind, soul. She is too addicted, too dependent on him to leave.

Looking into his eyes, she can see that he feels the same way towards her.

He starts to unlace her corset, stitch by stitch. Instinctively, impulsively, she throws her arms around him and holds tightly to him. She could never let go of him; they are too tightly wound together, intertwined like the laces of her corset.

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They lie there, side by side, three endless inches between them. She keeps her back to him, not ready to face him just yet.

She rolls onto her back, once she is sure he is fast asleep, or intent on pretending he is. Her hand flops onto his, and she starts to move away in awkward shame.

"...beloved..."

His fingers thread with hers, warm and safe, and she is forgiven, saved, salvaged.

The night goes dark as he pulls the cover over both their heads, and the three inches between them disappear.

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**When I said this was a one-shot...I lied. I am a bad, bad person. **

**It's over. I will not write any more. I will go do Contraposition (which still adamantly refuses to cooperate) and the other one-shot that demands my attention.**

**If any of you have the English manga Volume five, the title page (the one that reads volume five) has a picture that helped inspire the first scene of part one. **

**Hope you enjoyed this. **

**Review, please! This has been chickentyrant5.**


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